


a thousand words

by hellabellamy



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Compliant, F/M, Fluff, Fluff without Plot, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-05
Updated: 2015-03-05
Packaged: 2018-03-16 11:31:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3486620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellabellamy/pseuds/hellabellamy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's a dangerous thing for a leader to have his mind and his heart at war.</p><p>(Or, four times Bellamy and Clarke need words to communicate, and the one time they don't)</p>
            </blockquote>





	a thousand words

_**i.** _

“You _never_ listen to me.” Her voice is a familiar snarl behind him as he hears the flap to his tent flutter shut.

Turning, Bellamy spies Clarke as she stands there, feet planted apart and arms folded. If not for her sweet and too-pretty face and straight-out-of-a-fairy-tale golden hair, he would have described her as fierce. The only thing fierce about her right now is the scowl that darkens her face the longer he stares.

Bellamy grunts, hooking his thumbs in the belt loops of his pants as his eyes rake her over. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about,” she says, starting forward with sure steps that clash vehemently with her princess-like appearance, “giving second rations to people before others have had even one.” Clarke comes to a stop just in front of him, the toes of their shoes nearly brushing. She pokes him once in the chest, hard. “That’s not right and you know it, Bellamy.”

“Look, Princess,” he pushes her hand away, “it’s not my fault if those damn kids can’t snatch their share before someone else does.”

Really, it isn’t. It’s a dog-eat-dog world down here, and he came to protect his sister, not to play babysitter. If they can’t stand up for themselves, it’s their own damn fault.

But, Clarke, it seems, feels differently. Her blue eyes are filled with heat as she purses her lips at him. “Maybe not, but they’ll listen to you if you enforce it.”

He can only scoff. “What, so I’m supposed to be the voice for equality now, is that it?” he asks rhetorically, lifting a hand into the air. His jaw tightens afterwards. “Equality is nothing but an ideal; look where _equality_ got us, Clarke,” Bellamy grinds out as he points to the dirty floor of his tent.

As far as he’s concerned, the people who preach about equality are the ones who don’t want to give it.

Clarke has the good grace to nod, as though she’s agreeing with him. She crosses her arms again. “It’s not about equality,” she says lowly, “it’s about what’s fair. And right now, the younger kids are starving because you won’t put your foot down.” The way that she glares at him then makes him squirm, and it’s so familiar and unnerving that he has to look away.

Council blood runs through her veins, he can tell. They’ve always been extraordinary at making people like him feel guilty for no reason.

Make him feel guilty that younger kids are starving while the older ones feast. As if that’s his fault.

Bellamy turns his face to the side, glaring at the glowing firelight that flickers through the flimsy flaps of his tent. “Oh, so now I’m the bad guy?” He scuffs his muddy boot against the floor.

“Not if you implement the fair-rations rule,” Clarke tells him, and her voice is softer, kinder. Despite that, he can still hear the steel behind it, and he knows that she’s prepared to fight him all night if she has to. “You want to be a leader? Here’s your chance.”

“…Dammit, fine,” Bellamy curses as he watches her point to the entrance to his tent. He stalks forward, prepared to lay down a new rule and he tosses over his shoulder, “You win. Happy now?”

_**ii.** _

She sees him coming long before he’s within hearing distance, heading straight for her like an angry bull. And despite the fact that his face is dark and his jaw is grinding and he damn near runs over Jasper, she stands her ground and waits for him to meet her at the dropship as she’s sorting different materials to use for medical purposes.

“Clarke, what the hell did you do?” Bellamy snaps when he’s caught up to her, his whole body tense, hands fisted by his sides.

“Bellamy,” she begins calmly, setting down her fistfuls of wires and rags and turning around, “I can explain – ”

“You sent Octavia to meet that grounder? _Alone?_ ” he interrupts furiously, nut-brown eyes glowing with rage. His cheekbones push against his skin as he growls, “He’s dangerous.”

“Not to her, he’s not, and you know that.” She fixes him with a cool look that’s intended to quell his anger, and it works a little.

Mostly because he knows she’s right—the grounder, Lincoln, she thinks Octavia said his name is—would sooner cut off his own hand than harm Bellamy’s sister. That doesn’t mean that Clarke’s completely comfortable with sending her off, by herself no less, but it still needed to be done.

“We need more information about medicinal herbs in the surrounding area,” she explains once Bellamy is calm enough to listen to reason and gestures to her miniscule piles of medical supplies. “I can only do so much with seaweed and boiled water.” Clarke is seriously thankful that they haven’t had a serious injury since Finn’s stabbing and poisoning, but she wants to be prepared just in case something happens.

Because, eventually, something _will_ happen. It’s inevitable, unfortunately.

Bellamy knows she’s right. She can see the war going on in his mind—torn between concern over his little sister, and the good he knows it will do their people.

Fixing him with a small, reassuring smile, Clarke touches the cuff of his dirty jacket. “Octavia will be fine,” she says.

“You’d better hope so,” Bellamy assents as he closes his eyes, lifting his face to the sun.

The freckles dusted across his tan face dance in the light, and for just the briefest moment, Clarke is mesmerized. She’s always recognized his completely unnatural good looks, but there’s just _something about this angle._ Then, he shifts his stance, and the moment—as strange as it is—is over.

“If she has even one scratch on her,” he mutters as he lowers his head to glower at her, “I swear…”

“I know, I know.” She waves a hand at him, enjoying the way a muscle in his cheek twitches in either annoyance or humor—she can’t quite tell. “Just trust me for once, okay?”

And at that, he blinks. Then mutters some sort of agreement under his breath and stalks away, leaving her to her sorting.

_**iii.** _

“What happened?” Clarke asks, a furrow in her brow as she watches Miller, with one of Bellamy’s thick arms slung over his shoulder, drag the surly man into the med bay.

He’s sour and cursing and the fabric covering his opposite shoulder is dark with blood. She quickly assures herself that it’s not too serious of a wound, judging by the amount of blood and Bellamy’s snarly behavior as he swears he doesn’t need medical attention.

“One of the recruits’ guns misfired, clipped his shoulder,” Miller explains as he trudges up to the exam table.

Bellamy scowls and, after grimacing when his shoulder is jostled, leans against the metal table instead of Miller. “I said I was fine,” he mutters lowly, cradling his injured arm with an unhappy glare.

“Bellamy, a gunshot wound doesn’t make you fine,” Clarke chastises, narrowing her eyes at the stubborn brute in front of her.

He shoots her an annoyed look, but after an amused snort from Miller, quickly turns his attentions back to the other man. If not for his injury, Clarke swears Bellamy probably would have reached out and boxed Miller’s ears.

Turning on her heel with that humoring thought, she says, “Thanks, Miller. I’ll take care of it from here,” before looking back at Bellamy. He’s scowling and clutching his arm, looking more like a cornered, angry cat than a fully grown man.

Clarke can barely stifle her amused laugh.

Once Miller exits the med bay, leaving Clarke and Bellamy alone, she ushers him up onto the examination table, though not without a fair bit of grumbling on his part. He does eventually sit still, but his displeasure radiates from him in palpable waves.

“A misfire, huh?” she muses as she peels away the sleeve sticky with blood from his right shoulder.

It’s a clean through-and-through, much to her relief, and it won’t need much more than a good cleaning and stitching. But he still flinches when she rips the shirt away.

“Damn recruits,” Bellamy snorts. “Kane doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing down here…”

“Well, at least he’s letting you help train the recruits now,” Clarke says as she fetches a batch of Monty’s moonshine, a couple rags, and a needle. She sets them on the table next to Bellamy’s left thigh and he grimaces at them, leading Clarke to pat his knee reassuringly. “That’s an improvement, at least.”

“Barely. Those kids are startled by fucking rabbits,” he grumbles and reaches for the moonshine, taking a swig without asking. His cough is dry and hoarse as he hands it back to her. “More than one aren’t mentally prepared for combat and I don’t think they ever will be,” he says, watching as she pours the moonshine onto one rag. “They’re more likely to shoot each other. Or me.” Bellamy hisses when she presses the alcohol-soaked rag to his shoulder.

She frowns her apology, gently dabbing at the wound. “Just like we were when we first came to the ground,” she reminds him and then sets down the rag to grab her needle and thread.

“Except we were forced to become warriors; we had no one to protect us.” His following laugh is bitter and sardonic, and when the needle first bites into his torn flesh, he winces and his muscles bunch involuntarily. “Shit, that hurts.”

Even though he says so, and his whole body is tight with strain, Bellamy’s as still as a paraplegic. Most people Clarke stitches up cry and, despite their best efforts, wiggle around on the table because of their lack of numbing properties and anesthesia. Considering that, she’s fairly impressed that he manages to be as still as he is, only biting out a few curses and pushing air out through his nose when the needle punctures his skin again and again.

He snatches the moonshine once more and takes a long drink.

“Sorry, just bear with me for a little longer,” Clarke murmurs, her eyes glued to the wound sight. She’s about halfway done, and the fact that he’s an unusually good patient is helping. “You’re lucky it passed through, otherwise I’d have to go digging for the bullet and that’s a party…” she jokes, pulling the needle through once more before tying it off.

Clarke snips the thread and heads around to the other side of the table to begin on the exit wound. It’s larger than the entrance, and his tanned skin is feverish when she brushes her hand over the top of his shoulder as a reminder to stay still.

And though she doesn’t want to notice it, she does. His skin is smooth and silky and draped over hard muscle, like satin over top of unbending steel.

“Oh, I know.” Bellamy’s voice is grouchy, pulling her back into the conversation, and she can just imagine the scowl on his face, that little scar above his upper lip pulling taut. “‘Member last year, when one of Jasper’s bullets ricocheted into my calf? Cuz I sure as hell do.”

The reminder of that day, which seems so long ago now, nearly makes Clarke chuckle in its absurdity. But she reins the chuckle into a grin that he won’t ever see and begins sewing the other half of his wound closed.

“You were cursing up a storm when he dragged you into the dropship. Scared him half to death, too,” she says past her amused smile while her nimble fingers mend his torn skin.

“Yeah, well, excuse me,” he nearly wheezes when the needle punctures a particularly painful area, “if I don’t take too kindly to being shot.”

His bitter sarcasm and dry wit are what do her in, and Clarke can’t help but let a little laugh past her mouth. Really, he’s the only one who can get her to truly laugh these days. And part of her suspects that he tries to do it on purpose.

But, of course, she can never prove that.

And she highly doubts that he would volunteer himself to get shot just for her amusement.

Still chuckling under her breath, Clarke finishes doctoring his wound and wraps a clean cloth bandage over his shoulder. “You’re all finished,” she says and strokes her hand over her handy work. Gathering her supplies, she rounds the examination table and shoots him a stern look. “Don’t lift anything too heavy or you’ll pop your stitches. Take it easy for a day or so.”

“Yeah.” Bellamy nods, reaching up to touch the bandage on his right shoulder, and Clarke resists the urge to shake her head.

He’s going to lift heavy things anyway and he’s not going to wait even twelve hours to do it, despite her orders. He’s always been stubborn.

Just as she’s walking away to go wash her hands, she hears the _thunk_ of his work-boots as they smack into the metal floor. “Hey, Clarke?” he calls after her.

“Hm?” She glances over her shoulder, and is completely taken aback by the small smile tugging at his lips.

No one, she thinks to herself, should have a smile that heartbreakingly beautiful.

“Thanks,” he says.

_**iv.** _

He sees her by the fire, a tin cup in her hand and a smile gracing her cheeks. Her hair is like liquid gold in the lighting and despite the fact that he’s far away and it’s dark, he likes to think that he can see a little flush to her cheeks.

As he lurks by the borders of the gate, his own cup of moonshine sitting loosely in his palm, all he can do is watch her. Watch as she smiles and laughs and even twirls around the bonfire with Jasper and Monty at her heels. A part of him almost wants to join them in their nonsensical celebrations, but, he’s content to just watch for now.

She’s happy, he thinks to himself when she tosses her head back and laughs loudly, and that’s enough for him.

But, eventually, she turns around and spies him, and if it’s even possible, her blue eyes light up even brighter. She leaves Jasper and Monty to dance by themselves and share their stories as she saunters over to meet him.

“Someone’s looking happy for once,” he observes when she’s close enough to hear him and the smile doesn’t fade from her face. “Enjoying Unity Day, are we?”

“I think so,” Clarke admits, beaming. She shakes her nearly-empty cup at him with another grin. “But that might just be the moonshine. Not really sure.” The blonde shrugs halfheartedly, coming to stand next to him to watch the others celebrate.

And now that she’s close enough, close enough that their arms brush and her hair tickles his chin in the breeze, he can smell the moonshine on her and he _knows_ she’s had a lot more to drink than what’s presently in her tin cup.

“…You’re drunk,” Bellamy states, a little bewildered.

It’s the first time he’s seen her frown tonight, but even so, it’s more adorable than it is unnerving. Her lips pucker and her cheeks are still flushed as she blinks up at him with glassy eyes. “What?” she sniffs at him. “Is that so strange?”

“Considering you’re Miss Serious, Princess,” he snorts, unable to hold back his chuckle when her brows lower, “I’d say yeah. I’ve seen you drink before, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen you get drunk.”

She’s a leader after all, and so is he, and more often than not, they’re facing tough times and even tougher enemies. Leaders can’t afford to be inebriated in their position, because that leads to trouble. Or worse—it gets people killed. But, she does have the occasional drink and Bellamy probably has about a cup of moonshine per night to relax; he’s not as noble as his partner may be and his tolerance is quite high, unlike hers.

“Hmm, you’re right.” Clarke bobs her head in a nod, the movement uncoordinated and so very strange-looking. Bellamy isn’t used to seeing her so… _lax._ “I don’t usually get drunk, but tonight… Tonight just felt like a good night, y’know?” she whispers to him and turns her face up to the night sky.

Of course, he thinks as he watches her carefully, it helps that they’re currently not in the middle of a war and they’re relatively stress-free for once. These peaceful times hardly ever happen, and they’re to be taken advantage of. And to be honest, if she’s this mellow when everything is good…then Bellamy definitely wouldn’t mind letting the good times last.

Clarke carries the weight of the world on her slender shoulders, he knows. She could use a break.

And a coat, he notes as he sees her give the barest shiver.

“I guess,” he murmurs in reply and begins to shed his old jacket. It’s not much, but it’s more than what she has on and he holds it out to her. “Here, take this; you’re cold.”

Startled, Clarke eyes the jacket in his hand before quirking a single brow. “Bellamy Blake,” she says with a spreading coy grin and takes the jacket, “being a gentleman?” She sounds positively scandalized at the idea, but he knows she’s merely teasing.

Bellamy feels his own grin growing—and he tries to ignore the way their hands brushed when she took the jacket from him. “Something like that. But don’t tell anyone, it’s a secret.” He jokingly shakes a finger at her, giving her a stern face that she, if she weren’t smashed, probably would have recognized as a poor imitation of her mother.

Her laughter is like sweet music in the night air, filling his heart with something warm. It’s such a nice feeling.

“Of course,” Clarke agrees after a little while. The tips of her nose and ears are red as she fingers the hem of his jacket, pulling it tighter around her with the hand that isn’t holding her moonshine. “Hey,” she says suddenly, turning to him, “you wanna hear one of my secrets?”

Bellamy blinks.

It isn’t often that Clarke’s in a sharing mood; he usually has to pry things out of her and it’s a long and painful process for both of them. The fact that she’s willingly volunteering information is a nice change of pace.

Lifting his own cup to his mouth, he mumbles, “…Sure, why not.”

“I think I’m in love with you. Not really sure yet, though,” she says nonchalantly, catching him completely off-guard.

Bellamy splutters mid-drink, moonshine sloshing out of his tin cup and all over his hands and his chest, soaking his shirt in the chilly air. He wheezes as the alcohol burns an unpleasant path down his throat and up his nose. Bending over, he braces one hand on his knee and continues to cough and hack until his throat is scratchy and raw and his head aches.

_I think I’m in love with you._

Jesus Christ, he thinks to himself, she just flipped his whole world upside down in one sentence and he’s reeling. Seriously, his head is spinning and he has to keep his eyes shut for fear he might actually fall over. Bellamy stays bent at the waist, breathing through his nose, and he can feel her eyes on him.

“Are you okay?” Clarke asks worriedly, as though surprised.

“Yeah, yeah,” he rasps, waving a hand at her, “m’fine.”

Except, no he’s not. He has absolutely no idea what to do with what she just told him. None at all.

And he can practically hear the frown in her voice as she says, “You sure?”

“Yeah.” Slowly, he rights himself, pinching the bridge of his nose when his head pounds in protest. “I just…yeah, I’m sure,” he stumbles, rubbing his face.

“M’kay.” Clarke is still pinning him with a narrow-eyed look of suspicion, her pink lips pursing. But, when he just stands there for a little while, too dumbstruck to say anything, she huffs and finishes off her cup of moonshine. “I’m gonna go dance now. Wanna join me?” The look she gives him now is a little hopeful as her teeth worry her bottom lip.

Bellamy finds himself swallowing, his dark eyes transfixed on her mouth. But then he shakes his head—immediately regretting the action when it throbs. “Nah,” he croaks out, clearing his throat afterwards. “I’m good. Just gonna watch.” And he folds his arms across his chest pointedly.

She sniffs at him, seeming disappointed, but she only shrugs. “Suit yourself.” Then, she’s bounding off back to the bonfire, where’s she’s welcomed back by Jasper with a bear hug.

For the rest of the night, as their people dance and sing and carry on, he watches. And he only has eyes for her.

As she drinks and laughs and dances, her cheeks rosy and her fingers red from the chill. As she snuggles into his jacket that she wears all night long, casting him glances over her shoulder every once in a while when she thinks he’s not looking.

_I think I’m in love with you._

Scrubbing a hand over his face, Bellamy chuckles weakly. God, if only he knew what to do with that.

**_+i._ **

He’s shoving his way into the cabin that serves as their med bay, storming past the guard at the door who knows better than to try and stop him, as panic clutches at his heart with icy fingers. “Clarke!” he shouts, stalking to the end of the small cabin where a makeshift curtain hides the first examination table.

When he rips it away, the breath rushes from his lungs.

She’s there, lying on the examination table, with a gash the length of his forearm on her thigh. It’s deep, so deep he swears he can see white bone, and she looks pale. Too pale. But her eyes are open and the startling blue of them makes his hand clench in the fabric of the curtain.

It’s only when he can breathe again that he notices Harper and Octavia fluttering over her prone body, tearing her left pant-leg and pressing wads of rags into the wound. “What the fuck happened?” His voice is low, a rumble that even he can barely hear.

And maybe that’s why neither of the other girls seem to hear him, and they continue to tear and apply pressure.

“Is she okay?” he barks at the two of them, and he knows he’ll feel guilty about Harper’s startled flinch later.

Octavia, with Clarke’s blood on her hands, rounds on him then with a glint in her eyes. “Bell,” she says, her tone curt and professional as she steps in front of him, “not now, okay? Harper and I need room to work.” His sister puts her hands on his shoulders and goes to give him a light shove, urging him to turn around and leave.

It’s probably a wise decision—for him to leave, that is. He knows that he’ll probably just get in the way. But…he just can’t leave. His feet are rooted to the floor and he can’t physically bring himself to leave while knowing that Clarke is suffering mere feet from him.

Bellamy glares down at Octavia, feeling his face darken to a degree that scares the daylights out of his recruits. “Not a chance, O. I need to see her, let me through,” he demands, squaring his shoulders and preparing to barrel through his baby sister.

“Bellamy – ” Octavia starts, closing her eyes in frustration, but she’s interrupted by Harper.

Her head is bent towards Clarke’s, as if she’s leaning down to listen to a whisper. “Clarke wants him,” she says softly.

Bellamy doesn’t wait for Octavia’s permission to enter before he’s shouldering his way into the examination area, his eyes on Clarke. Faintly, he hears someone close the curtain again, but he doesn’t care because then he’s where he’s supposed to be, by Clarke’s side, and she’s blinking up at him with those baby blues that he doesn’t think he’ll ever tire of seeing.

“Hey, Princess, how’re you doing?” he murmurs softly, bending over to run his dirty hand through her hair in a lame effort to soothe her.

Briefly, he scowls at himself, because he should have washed his damn hands before touching her. But that thought is pushed to the back of his mind when Clarke manages a pained and pointed frown that’s aimed at him.

 _How’s it look like I’m doing?_ Her dry sarcasm rings unspoken in his head.

He almost snorts. “…Yeah, okay, shitty question,” he amends, his hand returning to her crown. Looking up, Bellamy fixes his dark eyes on Harper, who’s busy applying pressure again to the gash in Clarke’s leg. “What happened, Harper?”

“She was down by the river with a foraging team,” she begins in a small voice, never looking up. “They were collecting herbs for our medical supply.”

The girl has been understandably skittish since her time at Mount Weather; no one came back from that place without their fair share of horrors and nightmares. Hers just seem to haunt her longer, and Bellamy knows he should feel bad for being too…fierce around her.

But right now, he doesn’t damn well care; he wants answers. Yeah, he’s still a bastard.

“Yeah, I know that,” Bellamy says, growing frustrated. He’d sanctioned the damn mission after all, had sent Clarke off at the gate with a grin and everything. “What _happened?_ ”

Harper swallows, her small hands reaching for a bottle of antiseptic—really, a newer and particularly acidic version of Monty’s moonshine—and douses a new, clean rag. “Monroe says she accidentally sprung an old grounder trap,” she says, pressing against Clarke’s wound tentatively.

The instant the rag makes contact with her leg, Clarke stiffens on the table and lets out a pitiful whine that wrenches something in Bellamy’s chest. His hands fall to her face, framing her cheeks as he stands at the head of the table with a tight jaw and heavy shoulders.

“I don’t believe that for a damn second.” His thumbs are brushing her cheeks softly, a sharp contrast to his hard tone and his words. Then, he stares down at Clarke almost accusingly. “You protected someone from the trap, didn’t you?” he mutters to her, and she blinks up at him with no trace of guilt or remorse in her eyes.

_I’d do it again, too._

She doesn’t have to say anything. He just knows. And his heart skips a damn terrifying beat.

“God dammit, you’re too reckless, Clarke…” he scolds in a hot voice that very nearly breaks.

He’s almost angry with her for so casually endangering her life, placing herself in a position where he could lose her. But he knows he has no room to feel that way, considering that, in his head, he knows she’s done what leaders do—she’s looking out for and protecting their people. His heart, however, wants differently.

And it’s a dangerous thing for a leader to have his mind and his heart at war.

Through his scowl, he can see bright blue eyes narrowing at him. She’s displeased, he knows.

In a considerably smaller voice, Bellamy says, “Don’t look at me like that,” and ducks his head as if to hide from that all-knowing gaze.

Those eyes of hers are so piercing, even through the foggy haze of her pain and suffering; they cut him just as sharp as they do when she’s well and bristling with energy. Those bright blue eyes see everything in him, even the things he tries so hard to hide. Honestly, it scares him sometimes how perceptive she is of him; at times, it’s as if she knows him better than he knows himself.

Then Octavia’s there, her voice soft and commanding at the same time. “Bell, I’m gonna have to stitch her up.”

In her hands are a hot needle and a long line of thread that make Bellamy’s stomach twist in knots. He knows what she’s going to ask him before she even opens her mouth.

“I need you to hold her down, cuz it’s gonna hurt,” his sister says, and her eyes are full of sympathy. But then her mouth firms and she adds, “A lot.”

He can only push air out of his nose and close his eyes. God, he’s going to hate this.

“Okay.” Bellamy swallows roughly, nods, his dark curls falling past his brows and into his eyes as he looks down at Clarke, who has grown considerably paler. “Hey, you got this, Princess,” he whispers to her, his voice soft.

But then Octavia starts to stitch Clarke’s thigh, and her whole body strains against the metal table. Her eyes fly wide open, her mouth grinds shut, pain clear on her face and every inch of her body, and Bellamy has to lean across her and throw his strong arms over her chest to keep her from moving too much.

Each of Clarke’s little gasps and whimpers of pain are daggers in his chest. But she doesn’t release any more sound than that; she’s trying so hard not to cry out or scream…

Trying to keep from worrying him, he realizes suddenly.

“Hey, hey, look at me,” Bellamy finds himself chanting in a low, sweet voice that he’d only ever used with Octavia when she had been a child. It’s a voice he hasn’t used in a long, _long_ time, and it’s such a private thing; it’s only for Clarke to hear. “Look only at me. That’s right…” he murmurs, satisfied when Clarke’s straining eases and her eyes find his.

They’re wild and fiery and full of pain and life. Yes, she looks like a princess with her golden hair and her fair skin and her blue diamond eyes. But she’s also a warrior, fierce and bold and a force to be reckoned with on a good day, let alone a bad one.

His warrior princess.

The errant thought almost makes Bellamy chuckle. “You’re gonna be fine, Clarke,” he tells her, though honestly, he says it more for himself.

She looks as though she believes him, but then Octavia punctures a piece of Clarke’s thigh that makes her wince and let out a little yelp.

“I know. I know it hurts…” He removes one arm from across her chest to smooth over her hair, soothing, as he casts a glance over his shoulder to his sister. “How much longer, O?”

Octavia, completely focused on Clarke’s leg, tightens her expression as she hands the needle to Harper and then uses the wet rag to clean more of the wound. “You can’t rush this kind of thing, Bell. I’d much rather take longer and get it right than speed through it and screw something up,” she tells him very seriously.

It’s times like these, Bellamy thinks absentmindedly as he strokes a hand down Clarke’s cheek, that he can hardly believe the strong woman his baby sister has grown into. She seems so unshakable and firm, just like the woman lying on the metal table, who looks like she’s glaring at him.

“What?” Bellamy asks her, bewildered. But, when her eyes flick to his sister, he sighs. “All right, fine, I’ll stop bugging her.”

Despite the pain she’s enduring, Clarke’s face softens as she blinks up at him.

_Harper and Octavia know what they’re doing._

“Yeah, you taught them well, I know,” he muses wryly, liking the fact that she’s distracted from the pain, if only for the moment. But, then she flinches again and her jaw flexes, and he scrambles to regain her attention. “Hey, look at me…” he coaxes, threading his fingers through her sweat-damp hair, rubbing his thumb along her forehead. “How about I tell you a story, huh?”

He’s doesn’t really know where the offer comes from. Perhaps it comes from the same place as the soft, lilting voice of his that he’d once thought gone forever, the one only Octavia and Clarke have ever heard.

He’s not quite sure.

But either way, Clarke licks her lips and nods shortly, and then he’s bending over her and speaking in a low, soft voice. His forehead brushes hers, their noses almost touching, and their eyes locking in an embrace that feels much more intimate than it should. He tells her of the stories his mother once told him, the good ones and the bad ones. He tells her of the tales that Octavia used to love as a little girl, and he tells her of the many misadventures he had on the ark.

He tells her ones that make her eyes crinkle with happiness or with sorrow, being content with either so long as he doesn’t spot that speck of pain in the unfathomable blue.

All the while, he strokes her face and her hair in slow, repetitive motions. He cups her cheeks and rubs his grubby thumbs over her cheekbones. And every now and then, their noses bump as he continues to talk.

When the pain comes again and again without seeming end, he talks to her more and runs his fingers through her hair again and caresses her temples with his palms. It seems like this routine lasts for hours, and Clarke’s skin is clammy and his throat is sore from all the talking, but finally, Octavia and Harper announce that they’ve finished.

Clarke’s body is boneless, completely limp now that the pain is mostly gone. When his sister and Harper leave, both with knowing looks on their less-tense faces, her eyes are half-mast and her face is slack.

He doesn’t think he’s ever been so relieved to see Clarke look so tired.

“Long story short,” Bellamy rasps to her then as his mouth begins to curve into a grin, “I suck at story telling.”

A single blonde brow arches at him coyly. _Well, well, Bellamy Blake is owning up to his faults._

The taunt is almost audible to him.

And since there’s no one around to hear, Bellamy lets himself bark out a little chuckle. But then he’s scrubbing a hand over his face, more solemn than before as the weight of the scare settles into his heart like a heavy stone.

She could have died.

Pushing his dark curls out of his eyes, he stares down at Clarke. _You scared me, Princess._

 _It’s about time I did the scaring for a change._ She makes a noise somewhere between a snort and a scoff.

Bellamy can feel his eyes narrowing, becoming sharper as he fixes her with a severe look that he knows she won’t misinterpret. _Don’t do that again._ But, as soon as he thinks it, knows it’s reflected in his eyes, he tries to recount himself feebly. He can’t give her orders.

From the look on her face, she knows that too. _“Since I don’t take orders from you, I’m gonna need a better reason,”_ his own voice echoes in his head, perfectly matching Clarke’s awaiting expression.

“I just… I don’t…” he stumbles, reaching for the right words.

But they don’t come, he can’t seem to grasp them and say them. So he gathers up all the pain and worry and relief in his heart and presses a soft kiss to the skin of her forehead, hoping that she just might understand a little.

That she might know what he wants to say, but just can’t find the right words to do so.

Clarke only huffs out a little laugh, weakly dragging up one of her hands to his and lacing their fingers as his lips linger on her forehead. And the look she gives him just before she finally falls asleep says it all.

_I know. I love you, too._

**Author's Note:**

> First time writing for The 100 fandom! Kudos/comments feed my insatiable need to write. Much love!!


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